Home Sweet Home

We're back from our week-long excursion to Grammie & Grampy's house! Talia was spoiled rotten and loved every minute of it. She got to play with the toys from Grammie's daycare, made friends with all the kids at Grammie's daycare, went swimming with Daddy and Grammie, and was basically held, cuddled, entertained, and smothered with kisses every waking (and almost every sleeping) minute. That's what grandparents do!

Mommy, on the other hand, was kept on her toes by those bad granparents, trying to sneak treats into that cute little baby's mouth. A baby who is beginning to eat real food is a temptation like no other to Grammie & Grampy. Mommy was constantly swooping in (in the Nicholas P. of time!) to stop one of them from feeding Talia a wide variety of things: pudding, cookies, nutrigrain bars, toast & honey, salsa (seriously, grampy? SALSA?!?) and ice cream. Who knows what they were able to sneak past poor Mommy? (much to the delight of Tally, I'm sure!)

Party Girls

Yesterday Talia and I went to a 1st birthday party. Tally's BFF Ayva turned 1 and threw a fantastic bash, complete with a 97 year old Oma in attendance. (Too bad Talia's boyfriend Nicho wasn't there to serenade all the baby girls with "All the Single Ladies." He TOTALLY would have had all the girls swooning.)

Talia partied herself out by 6pm and slept straight through until 8:30 this morning. M'baby loves to sleep, just like Mama! Grammie phones every morning to see how our night was. When Talia delivers a snooze over 12 hours, I can practically hear Grammie bursting with pride all the way from G. Plains. Some families like to pass on jewellry, antiques, or other treasured family heirlooms. The McQueen clan likes to pass on a fondness for the pillow.

Three Ring Circus

Today was a beautiful, warm, sunshiney day. In an effort to tire out my dogs, I thought it would be the perfect day for all of us to go for a walk - Talia, Bert, Ernie, and myself.

Our first hurdle was just getting out of the house. Bert is scared of winter this year and has to be dragged out the front door. Ernie, on the other hand, has no fear of anything and likes to bolt out the front door unless you make him sit & stay, not taking your eyes off him. So I bundled up the baby, put her in the sled, tied Ernie's leash to the doorknob, and prayed for good results. Sure enough, as I was carrying the sleigh out the door, Ernie took off like a shot, only to slingshot himself on the door. Bert narrowly escaped getting the door slammed on him and took off like a shot as well - back into the house to hide under the kitchen table. (This was right about the time I started to suspect this wasn't a great idea.)

Finally, the 4 of us were outside, ready to take off around the block. My dogs are perfect little angels when they go on separate walks. Together, they are hellions. They pull at their leashes, each one determined to get ahead of the other. So today I tied Bert's leash around my waist so he was walking on my left, and held Ernie's leash on the right. I was pulling the sleigh on my left, so Bert the scaredy dog kept trying to get away from it. Of course, he was tethered to me, so he basically did a slow-motion gallop all the way around the block. Ernie could see Bert galloping beside him, assumed Bert was trying to get ahead of him, and pulled so hard on his leash that he kept pulling himself unconcious - he would fall over, take a couple of deep breaths, and then wake up. (Now I'm fairly certain this walk was going to be a big mistake.)

Halfway around the block (at the furthest point from our house), another dog in the neighbourhood (Echo, a really beautiful, playful, HUGE dog) started barking her head off at the boys. If they were by themselves, neither of them would have noticed. Together, they decided the best course of action to get back at Echo was to turn on each other. (They're cute, but not smart. And there's the confirmation I needed that this walk was the biggest gong show ever.)

Finally, I got the boys somewhat calmed down. I put Bert in the sleigh with his baby, which, let's be honest, was really what he wanted the entire time. Since Ernie wouldn't stop barking, I scooped him up under my arm and made a beeline for home. So if any of you were in the vicinity this afternoon, I was the short girl walking the dogs by pulling one in a sleigh and carrying the other. I'm surprised my neighbours weren't outside taking pictures. Tell me again why I thought it was a good idea to take them both for a walk?